Birthday message opposes oaths bill

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Australian monarchists were up in arms yesterday - the day Australians call the Queen's Birthday* - over a bill before the NSW Parliament proposing to remove references to the Queen and the Crown from the NSW oaths of allegiance.

A statement from Australians for Constitutional Monarchy, for which the national convener is Professor David Flint and the executive director is Kerry Jones, called on MPs to "strongly oppose this undemocratic, unconventional and unconstitutional example of creeping republicanism".

Under the Constitutional Amendment (Pledge of Loyalty) Bill 2004, MPs would pledge "loyalty to Australia and the people of NSW" rather than to the Queen, her heirs and successors. The private member's bill introduced by Paul Lynch, Labor MP for Liverpool, is in the second reading stage in the Legislative Assembly.

Mr Lynch said yesterday that he would prefer the day to be Australian Republic Day but added: "This bill does not replace loyalty to the Queen with loyalty to a president. It replaces allegiance to a head of state, who at the moment happens to be an hereditary monarch, with allegiance to Australia and the people of NSW.

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"The pledge is neither monarchist nor republican. It is about democratic theory and about accepting that our real legitimacy comes from Australia and from the people of NSW, not from someone who happens to be a head of state. Our allegiance is not to a head of state, or even to the state itself, but to the people who elect us and whom we represent."

Monarchists see the bill as part of a republican process that includes the removal of the Governor from Government House and the removal of the crown from the coat of arms in NSW courthouses. The Australians for Constitutional Monarchy statement says the bill is not compatible with the status of NSW as a constitutional monarchy, a status confirmed by the people in the failed referendum on the republic in 1999.

Diana Fisher, one prominent monarchist, accused the Premier, Bob Carr, of "stripping the Queen bare". She said the Government was plotting "the introduction of a serious alteration to the NSW Constitution without consulting the people".

Mr Carr introduced a similar bill in 1993, when leader of the Opposition. It lapsed, was reintroduced in 1995, after Mr Carr won office, but not proceeded with because Labor lacked the numbers in the Legislative Council.

The Government has not considered the matter a priority in recent years but Mr Lynch's bill won unanimous support from caucus. Cabinet also backed it, adding a clause that ministers would also pledge loyalty to the people rather than the Queen.

The earlier legislation was seen as part of a republican agenda, but Mr Lynch said his bill was not. It would follow the Australian Citizenship Amendment Act, which altered the pledge taken by new citizens. It now reads: "I pledge my loyalty to Australia and its people, whose democratic beliefs I share, whose rights and liberties I respect and whose laws I will uphold and obey."